Bedfellows
by PoppyWest
Summary: Johnny and Dutch sleeping together.
1. The Thief and the Bloody Bride

p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Dutch's POV -/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"When I first met Johnny he was trying to steal my ship, I wasn't angry at him because, at the time Lucy was just a ship, she wasn't my home yet. You might be wondering how Johnny went from stealing my ship to the person I trusted most in the world, someone I would die for. I don't know of many people who invite thieves into their homes, let alone their beds. I'm getting ahead of myself though, that comes later. So with my blaster pointed at his head (he says it was his crotch, but I think that's just his over inflated... ego) he does what I have learned comes naturally to him, he talked. A LOT. I briefly considered shooting him just to shut him up, still do sometimes. "... I really wasn't here to steal your ship, see what had happened was, well there was this girl and you know how that goes. A pretty girl comes up to you in a bar, you buy her a drink, you get to talking and... so anyways there was this girl and she casually mentioned that she has a thing for handsome guys, like me who have big ships! So I start thinking, "I'm already incredibly attractive and that really is the hardest part here, so how hard could it be to borrow a ship for the night? Just the night you know, I would have returned it.." and he just kept talking and talking and, yep, still talking. I mean he just would not stop! He was unlike anyone I had ever met!/p  
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"See Khlyen wasn't a big talker, he believed that words should be precise and that long, flowery speeches were for marks you were trying to seduce, but for everyday life words were nothing more than a distraction. Words take time, you have to think about how you are going to say what you want to say, then check before you say anything at all to make sure you are saying it correctly, without being insensitive. The truth is that words can be a waste of time, especially when I could be doing something else, like sharpening my skills as an assassin for example. Yet as the thief was talking I realized that I was calm and distracted, I wasn't thinking about all of the things I had to do and worry about. I wasn't thinking about how I was going to escape or getting the blood out of my wedding dress, the only thing I was thinking was, "don't shoot him Yala, it'll take time that you don't have to deal with his body." Annoying as he was, I wanted him to keep me company. I needed someone around me who could fill the silence. Who would keep me from thinking about Khlyen and everything he's made me do./p  
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"That thought brought all of what had happened in the last day rush over me, Johnny's voice fading into white noise and I felt overwhelmed. Khlyen. He was the reason my husband's blood stained the white of my wedding dress. I loved him and we hadn't even made it to our honeymoon before he was killed. This ship, "Lucy", was supposed to be for us. I had told him once of my dreams to see the Quad and he had wanted to surprise me for our honeymoon. You need to breath Yala! You needed to stay calm, you can mourn later, but for now you needed to run. "You are not weak, you can survive this" I said to myself, but, "you need to get yourself together before Khlyen comes for you."/p  
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Johnny's POV/p  
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"This girl was sending me signals, like let's go to you place signals. She was hot too, I had spied her coming in with a friend earlier. She had wavy blonde hair that hung unrestrained down her back, eyes that scanned the room and told me she knew what she was looking for and as soon as I saw her, I knew in that moment, what I was meant to do that night, or rather who. What can I say? I'm a romantic./p  
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"I went up to her and we started talking. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about foreplay, but this girl wanted to tell me her life's story. "I once dated this guy, and looking back I don't think he was the right guy for me. To be honest I don't even know why I dated him. You know what? I think it was his ship." "Okay", I thought, "I'm out." I do not need to be talking to this chick about some other guy's ship. I guess it showed on my face because the next thing she said was, "no! Not like that! He has a ship that he uses to transport worker's to and from Hokk farms on Leith. At least he did when we were dating, but we aren't together anymore- we haven't been together for a long time. There's just something about a guy who can handle a ship with that much power." She leans over a little more, seductively whispering in my ear, her breath hot on my neck./p  
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Now we're getting somewhere", I thought to myself, "I can work with this." "You know..." I had no idea what her name was, "beautiful", she giggled at that. "It's funny you should say something about ships because I'm here docking in Westerly until my crew and I sell our cargo." "Really!?" she exclaimed excitedly, "mhmmm..." I said, "what if we head upstairs and you can give me a proper send off?"/p  
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I know what we should do!" She said, to be honest I had pretty much zoned her out at this point. I was imagining all the fun we would have when we finally got upstairs. "Ya, totally", I replied to whatever she said. "OMG! This is going to be so cool!" Wait, what? "I've always wanted to "do it" on a ship, my ex would never let me come visit him though", she trailed off, telling me more about her ex then I wanted to hear. "This is going to end badly", I thought to myself./p 


	2. The Feral Beauty

p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Johnny's POV/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"So in a nutshell that is how I ended up here, with a beautiful, if not feral woman pointing her blaster at my crotch. Don't get me wrong, I didn't justspan style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"immediately /spansurrender for me, oh no. I am responsible for what I, and a lot of women around the Quad consider to be precious cargo. From the blood staining her wedding dress I guessed that she could use that blaster, so I did the only thing I could do, I talked my way out of it. I spun a tale of heroics and bravery to this woman in hopes that she would lower her blaster and let me go- remembering me only as a love struck fool who dared to try. "Alright thief, let's go", she said./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Dutch's POV/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Khlyen would be after me soon. He would have to clean up the mess he made at my wedding because even with his connections the scene he made with the 9 took time to deal with, but once he was done I knew that he could come for me. He would make me do it again, get close to someone- make them trust me, love me even then he would do, "whatever is necessary Yala" and I couldn't do it anymore! Ispan style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" can't/span do it anymore. I got too close to the mark on this job, I got emotionally involved and I fell in love, or as close as someone like me could come to it. With him I was happy, I imagined that Khlyen couldn't get to me anymore and that I was free with my prince to protect me, but I knew now that, that was just a dream. Now I was fleeing my home and my name, I could no longer be Yalena, the princess of the family Yardeen because Yala had always been a pawn in someone else's game. I had spent my life learning to be a warrior, for my father or Khlyen I wasn't sure, but the only real choice I had ever made for myself was when I decided to marry my prince instead of leaving him like Khlyen had wanted to. Judging by the groom's blood on my dress I can't say that it went well and now I needed to become someone different, someone who was strong enough to deal with what had just happened./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"strong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""You need to leave, I'm getting married soon!" Yala said in her wedding dress./strong/span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"strong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""Don't get marry, run away with me. To me you are my moon,my stars and my sun; you are my world and I need you in my life. I could not live this life without you, I am irrevocably- /strongstrong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"inconsolably/strongstrong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" in love with you, Yalena of the house Yardeen. Just come with me, please!" he said./strong/span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"strong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""I'm sorry" Yala said, "but I can't go with you. I am about to marry the man that I love, a man I hope loves me as much as you claim to. I think it's time for me to go, you should be leaving too." /strong/span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"strong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"As I walked down the steps to meet my groom I hoped that I made the right choice, I detest all of the ceremonies and formalities I'd had to go through for this wedding. Part of my dislike for it all was that when I was growing up in a harem with a hundred other royals there weren't any banquets to attend or personas to construct like, the harem was nothing like living with the 9. Yes my childhood was unusually, but at least there was that. I started to walk down the aisle and as was tradition leaves covered the floor and branches framed the narrow aisle, it was supposed to remind us that as even as two people pledged themselves to each other, in this life and in any other, mother tree connected us all, beyond even marriage./strong/span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"strong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Seeing my prince at the end of the aisle I knew that I had made the right decision, going through with the ceremony. "I'm glad you came" he whispered so that the Scarback could not hear us, "still kind of wish that you had run away with me, but seeing you walk down that aisle was worth it". "You were the one that wanted the ceremony!" I whisper-yelled, "and what were you doing coming up to my room like that?!" Even though she was yelling the love for him was evident in her eyes./strong/span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"strong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""And the roots grew. /spanspan style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Like our one world orbiting it's moons, so shall this man and this woman be connected. Forever bound, the love you share pulling you together like gravity. And as you rise together mother tree's branches will hold you, one mind shared by two souls. By mother tree's grace, even death shall not divide you, for when you dies her roots shall carry you home to your other half./span span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Praise the trees." The Scarback said, nearly finished with the binding ceremony./span/strong/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"strong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Yala looked at her prince seeing nothing but his love for her reflected in his eyes, then she watched in confusion as the light drained out of the eyes she loved so much. When she looked down all she could see was blood soaking through his shirt and staining her hands as she tried to stop the bleeding. Looking behind him she saw Khlyen, a smoking blaster in his hand./span/strong/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Yala woke up screaming, the thief threw himself through her door a moment later, his eyes scanning the room for what had made her scream. Dried tears staining her cheeks, she was ready to attack at any moment. Terrified, she was not yet free the memory she had woken up from./p 


	3. Bedfellows

p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Johnny's POV/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"strong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"*Warning Johnny's POV describes situations of violence, physical abuse, and substance abuse, if you think any of this will disturb or upset you please skip to Dutch's POV. /strong/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Screaming, I awoke to the sound of terrified screaming. I knew the sounds would fade, as they always did but that didn't make it any better to listen to in the mean time. With a drug addict for a mom and an abusive dad I had enough material to feed my nightmares for a life time. The nightmare I had woken from was a pretty minor one on the scale of bad dreams I've had./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Dad came home angry and drunk, he had lost all of our money on a game of poker and wanted to win it back. He found mom hiding in the corner of the kitchen, (we were hiding across the hall) she was screaming and crying as he broke his fingers on her face. Sometime's on the cabinet's he hit every other punch on accident seeing as he was too drunk to hit what he was aiming for. "I know that you have sume mooneyyy hidden sumewheree...", he slurred. She did have money hidden above the cabinet he was punching so hard, she kept it to pay from him so that she could pay for her next hit of Jakk and sometimes she gave me enough money to feed D'avin and I. I knew that she would never tell him where it was though, not even if he came after us. I try not to blame her, really I do. Some days were nice, when she wasn't looking for her next hit. (dad's or of Jakk) See the thing about Jakk is once you try it you literally never stop, I guess that's appealing to some, especially those in positions similar to ours. She wanted something that would consume her, make her stop thinking about my dad. Something to make it so the thought of Jakk took up most of her thought, instead of the terror she felt when expecting cruelty from the person who was supposed to love her the most./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"I didn't like to think about my childhood often, but sometimes my brain needed to work out the trauma I had experienced and the only time I wasn't guarding against those thoughts was when I was asleep./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"So I stared at the ceiling, trying to distract myself from the screams I was still hearing, this was insane! If I had a normal mother, one who remembered that she had children, I imagine she would have said something along the lines of, "don't get into cars with strangers". Not saying that I had much of a choice span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"but/span to follow this strange woman into her space ship. A ship she could quite possibly be using to deep space me. (Ejected from the ship into deep space where the body will die and won't be found) She could be trying to get ride of witnesses, with all of the blood on her wedding dress she might have just murdered someone!/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"My brother, D'avin, always said that my curiosity would get me killed one day. Didn't think it would end exactly like this. I mean I imagined something with a little more adventure and yes, there might have been a girl in that story too, but this ending was just sad! I tried to steal a pretty ship to impress a pretty girl and was held at gun point by a beautiful woman. There was something in her eyes though, that made me think I would be safe. Not the girl from the bar, no there wasn't anything in her eyes- they were blank. It was one of the reasons I chose her to be my one night stand, I didn't think I would get in trouble with a woman who held nothing behind her eyes, there were no secrets hidden in her gaze. But the woman in this ship with me- when I looked into her eyes I saw sadness. Like she had just lost her world in the minute it took for her to look at me and now she was lost. Alone and unsure of what to do, but the thing was that she didn't seem like an unsure person, the way she held her blaster told me that she knew what she was doing and for some reason she didn't shoot me./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Man these screams just would not stop! They didn't usually last so long, or seem so realistic... "But we were the only ones on the ship. Weren't we? They must be her screams." I thought as I ran trying to find her room. After she pulled the gun on me she had offered me something to eat and showed me to my room, but she wasn't exactly chatty and I had no idea where she was or if I was going to be able to help her. Although if my experience with my messed up parents taught me anything it was that no one deserves such cruelty, so yes, if she needs help I will help her./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"When I finally found her room I couldn't get in, everything was run by the ship and coded to it's owners voice, her voice. I didn't have the authorization to enter any room she had not cleared me for and her room wasn't one of those rooms. span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Think Johnny, think!/span I was smarter than this. If I had a blaster I could shoot my way through, destroying the interface that allowed the ship to control this door. Without that interface it would automatically open and I could get in. But I didn't have a blaster, so I needed to keep thinking. Instead of shooting it, I punched the interface. It wasn't enough to sever the connection between the ship and the door, but through the cracks in the control panel I could reach the wires and make the door open. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"As the door slide open, much to quietly for the screams escaping the room and as I threw myself through the door I prepared myself to attack anyone that had harmed my kidnapper. My eyes scanning the room, but all I saw was a woman fighting her own demons. I was confused at first, I thought whom ever was attacking her had to be hiding behind the door or under the bed as cliche as it sounded, yet all I saw was a haunted woman tangled and sweaty in her on sheets. It looked as though she had been fighting for a very long time./p 


	4. Finding A Friend

p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Johnny's POV -/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"When I saw my kidnapper curled up in her bed, so afraid, I wondered what nightmares she was running from. I approached her bedside slowly like I had learned to do with my mother after one of my father's attacks. "It's okay" I said as her eyes swung around to see me, seeming surprised that I was in her room. "I don't know what you're running from but we don't have to stay here. We can just fly away, and never look back."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"When she looked at me her eyes were still haunted, but they were clearer than what they had been when she had still been living her nightmare. "I think it's time to go", she told me. I got up with the intention of getting us out of here even though I had no idea how to work this ship, D'avin always said I was always good at figuring stuff out. Then she reached out and grabbed my arm, I knew that physical contact was always rough after waking up from a terror as intense as it seemed she had, especially by a stranger./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Stay?" she said with a fear in her voice that didn't seem to match the woman I had met earlier that night. "What do you need me to do?" I said trying to keep my voice soft, imagining that I was speaking to a wounded animal. "Will you just stay with me for a little while?" so I slid into her bed and her arms timidly wrapped around head resting on my chest listening to my heart beat. I listened to her breath in and out, never going back to sleep but finding peace in my arms. Strangely enough I found comfort in her too. I knew what it felt like to be woken by a fear so great that it seemed to strangle you, I saw my own terror in this woman who seemed so strong but in my arms seemed so fragile. It was nice to find someone else who understood, even if she didn't realize my past came to haunt me in the night too./p 


	5. Finale?

p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Dutch's POV/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"After Johnny ran into my room I realized I was awake, the thing about dreaming was that you never knew you were asleep. When I woke up I still felt like I was reliving his death, not that I had expected to have move past it already. The death of my loved one had happened only earlier that day, although it felt like a life time ago. The sadness I felt for my now dead husband was there, but there was no room to dwell on the loss when my fear was so strong. My prince's death caused me to feel great pain, but the logical part of my brain- the Khlyen part of my brain, knew that my prince was dead and gone. That there was nothing I could do about his death, but that Khlyen was still a very real threat and I needed to keep myself from dying before I could mourn his death./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The predator in me, the part of me Khlyen had honed and trained, told me I needed to move. Check the ship to make sure there was nothing that could track me. I needed to come up with a game plan because my chances of escaping Khlyen were pretty slim, should I need to fight my way out in hand to hand combat or a duel with weapons I had a chance of beating him./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"I didn't possess the love for death that Khlyen did, but I was like a dangerous animal backed into a corner. My problem with my escaping Khlyen was not my skill but rather his resources. Khlyen had always given me the best; the best tutors, the best clothes, the best room in my Harem. It had to be a single room, so that I would not grow attached to any of the other girls, but also so that no one with any influence would ever see the bruises I carried, or the blood I sometimes had to wash out of my clothes./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"I knew from all of this that Khlyen had money, but from the way he could silence anyone who asked too many questions or arrange for me to be removed from the Harem without alarms being raised, told me that he was also very powerful. Some think that the two are the same, but the truth is that you can have power and not enough money to do anything with it or you can be rich but not have the power to keep your enemies from killing you and taking the money for themselves./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"I wasn't weak. I wasn't even very emotional and this was before Khlyen took me. My father had abandoned me to a Harem where I went hungry, I was bullied daily by the other girls so by the time Khlyen found me I had learned that showing vulnerabilities only made your enemies attack faster. I could block these negative thoughts when I was awake and aware, but during those lucid moments of sleep my heart was the freedom it desired to mess with my head./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"When the thief found me I knew it was dangerous to allow this stranger to see me when I was vulnerable and easily taken advantage of. For all I knew he could be a spy/assassin Khlyen had sent after me, ready to kill me at any time. There was something about him though, I had been trained to automatically scan people's body language to determine their intent, so I couldn't see it right away, but it was the way he approached me, his eyes were kind as he whispered that I was "safe", something I knew I wasn't but desperately wanted to be. He said something to me, something that I would pull from my memories in the future to comfort myself with, "We don't have to stay here. We can just fly away, and never look back." And that was what I wanted, more than anything else in that moment. I wanted to leave this place that reminded me of running and terror, insecurity and death./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Not moving meant that you were an easy target, it was one of the many things Khlyen taught me- a moving target is an easy mark. Moving keeps you alive, keeps you from being struck down, it keeps you on your toes and ready for danger to come for you. When you stop you become comfortable, you learn your neighbors name, you grew to trust them until one day they get the word from Khlyen and slit your throat as they drop of the Christmas cookies they promised./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"I was never very shy about men in my bed. At the Harem I was taught how to seduce a man into bed and keep him there, but something about inviting this thief into my bed seemed intimate. As he lied down beside me I positioned myself on his chest, I listened to his heart hoping it would fill my head and drown out all of the other thoughts that plagued me. I couldn't fall back asleep, I didn't want to see the image of my dead husband being killed by the man I thought of as my father. So I just listened to his heart, strong but sure in it's beat. It was constant and it soothed me to a place where thoughts of sad and terrible things didn't bounce around my head to the point where I could think of nothing else./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"I felt peace. /p 


End file.
